Good housing is expensive. Even if it’s widely understood, that fact alone might not encourage the type of policy changes that benefit families. A fresh approach to framing — emphasizing availability, not affordability, and focusing on solutions, not just problems — can help move mindsets and create the conditions for systems change.

Key takeaways:

• Let’s define the housing problem as one of availability, instead of one of opportunity or affordability. When we do, we focus squarely on the context that policies create. In this framing, there is less room to lay blame at the feet of individuals and more room for people to demand that decision-makers take action.
• Housing insecurity currently affects almost every community in the nation. Yet the public lacks a strong sense of connectedness to this problem as a shared social issue and to people experiencing housing challenges. Values-based messages — those that express a higher ideal or principle (such as fairness – “justice for all” or interdependence – “what affects you, affects me”) — can orient people toward a more collective perspective.

When discussing housing, it helps when we:

• Offer background that people are probably missing
• Show how housing connects to other outcomes
• Equip people to imagine what change can look like
• Show that real solutions are within reach

• Julie Sweetland, Sr. Advisor, FrameWorks Institute
• Sue Casey-Leininger, Sr. Manager – Grant Making & Impact, UWGC

Thursday, November 14, 2024

Presentation slides: uwgcxframeworks-reframing-housing-issues-2024-slides.pdf